Tetsuya NODA: A Life in Pictures
I have always enjoyed being hosted by Noda-san and his wife Dorit at the large round table in their Chiba home. Dorit, who is from Israel, is a wonderful cook and, when I've been invited for lunch, I particularly look forward to her special hummus. Conversation, punctuated by laughter, flows freely. We enjoy discussing world events as much as the foibles of various characters in the Japanese art world, although Noda-san is always so kind that he can put a positive spin on even the most ornery people.
I have known Noda-san for many years, and it has always interested me that while many artists choose not to reveal much of themselves through their work, Noda-san has gone to the other extreme.
Noda Tetsuya (b. 1940) has spent most of his artistic life producing his Diary series. Each print is titled with a date, and each records something that was happening in his life on that day. It might be a walk in the park with Dorit, an exhibition opening, a visit with friends, or simply a flower blooming in the family garden. What most of us might consider an ordinary event is often enough to inspire Noda-san to make a print.
The idea for the Diary series came to him when he was still in his twenties, finishing art school. I once asked him how he had decided to concentrate on this particular subject, and his answer was characteristically straightforward.
"I remembered that back in elementary school we had homework during summer vacation which required us to keep a diary. We had to draw pictures of what was happening in our lives. I decided that was a good enough theme for me to concentrate on as an adult. I had always gone around taking pictures, so then I just decided to work photography into my prints." And that is what he has been doing ever since.
Noda-san taught for many years at the prestigious Tokyo Geidai (Tokyo University of the Arts), where he is now Professor Emeritus. He pioneered a complex, multistep method of printmaking combining photography, silkscreen, and woodblock techniques.
He begins by taking photographs, which he then works on and converts into stencils through a Gestetner mimeograph machine. The photographic image is transferred by silkscreen onto handmade Japanese paper, with woodblock elements added to introduce color and shading. It is a rather involved process, but one that Noda-san has refined over the decades. When the print is completed, instead of using the usual Japanese carved seal, he dips his thumb into an ink pad and leaves his thumbprint on the paper. "That adds a pop of color," he explained to me, noting that he likes the contrast with the generally subdued palette of his work.
Noda-san received international recognition early in his career. In 1968, when he was only twenty-eight, he won the International Grand Prize at the Tokyo International Print Biennale. His use of photography in conjunction with traditional Japanese printmaking was quite innovative for the time and attracted considerable attention. Since then, his work has been exhibited extensively in Japan and abroad and has entered the collections of major museums, including the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The British Museum held an exhibition of his work in 2014.
Despite all this recognition, Noda-san remains very down to earth and is much more interested in making his next print than in talking about his accomplishments. He seems genuinely surprised that so many people want to collect images of his everyday life. "I'm just living. It's so interesting that people want to buy work showing my life," he once told me.
Of course, not everything that happens in Noda-san's life is an ordinary domestic event. Sometimes his prints record moments that have affected all of us. A particularly interesting example is Diary: March 13th '20, made during the COVID-19 pandemic. The print shows Noda-san and Dorit, both wearing masks and holding additional masks, looking out at us and beyond us.
There is a story behind the masks. Noda-san had received them from several people, including a neighbor, his sister in Kyushu, and a friend in Macao. He also incorporated an image of the so-called "Abe masks," the cloth masks distributed to Japanese households by the government of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. Those of you who were in Japan at the time will certainly remember the controversy surrounding the size and quality of those masks.
When Noda-san first sent me a photograph of this print, I felt strongly that it should be seen in public collections as a record of that extraordinary period. I approached several museum curators, all of whom agreed with me, and was pleased to be able to work with the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as several other museums to add this print to their collections.
In the case of the Met, the acquisition was especially appropriate. Dr. John Carpenter, the Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese Art, pointed out to me that March 13, 2020, the date of Noda-san's print, was also the very day that the Metropolitan Museum closed its doors because of the pandemic. What a remarkable coincidence! Noda-san, sitting in his studio in Japan, had recorded a moment in his own life on a date that happened to have such significance for a major museum in New York.
The Met acquired the print in 2022 as a gift from Peter J. Cohen, in memory of those who died from COVID-19. It seems to me a very appropriate addition to the museum's collection, not only as an example of Noda-san's work, but also as a record of an event that affected people everywhere.
Despite his distinguished career, Noda-san has never lost his curiosity about the everyday things around him. Whether he is traveling, visiting friends, walking with Dorit, or noticing something in the garden, there is always the possibility of another entry in his Diary.
When I think about him and his work, I often come back to his own humble explanation of why people find his prints so interesting: "I'm just living." What a pleasure it is for the rest of us to be able to observe Noda-san's life through his stunning personal prints.
